Training only, maybe?
The article also mentioned training up your vision system against LiDAR data - that makes some sense. If that's a planned route to ditching the LiDAR, then nobody really cares how expensive they are in low volume, as long as they work and can be bought. 6 months delay will concentrate the mind, though. Maybe people will design the systems while they wait, rather than just knocking out some code and hoping it compiles?